


Of Broken Wings and Empty Promises

by CatastrophicallyInLoveWithBooks



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Thesan and his mate/partner/consort/lover from acowar, Under the Mountain - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 05:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11411628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatastrophicallyInLoveWithBooks/pseuds/CatastrophicallyInLoveWithBooks
Summary: He wanted nothing more than to take Thesan’s pain away, to save him from the agony of grieving his killed subjects and to kill whoever caused his High Lord pain. For he felt Thesan’s pain as if it were his own. He had his own reasons to grieve his fallen brothers, but alongside his own grief, he also felt the agony of the High Lord who had failed his people and let them be dragged Under the Mountain to meet a fate worse than death. But this had all been a display of how defenseless they all were against Amarantha’s wrath and he knew that his promises would hold no weight. Sometimes, though, even empty promises were better than nothing.





	Of Broken Wings and Empty Promises

Thesan made his way slowly through the dark corridor, bile rising in his throat. He stepped carefully around the tangle of limbs and bodies on the floor, the puddles of scarlet and the feathers and fluff sticking to flesh. The bodies had not yet started to rot, the scene perfectly preserved as if the carnage had happened mere minutes ago. She had moved fast. Less than a day was all it took for her to act and he didn’t know if this had all been a carefully crafted plan intended to make him break or if it had simply been one of her whims. He didn’t know which would have been worse.

He recalled the horrible moment when he glimpsed Amarantha striding through the throne room. He remembered how his blood chilled in his veins, how his mind fixated on the steady beat of her heeled shoes on the marble floors and he felt each step like a punch to his gut. He remembered he saw her red lips twist into a satisfied grin as her eyes watched his every reaction like a viper, looking for any signs of weakness to know when to strike. His vision, however, had narrowed down to the cape of her dress, to the way the feathers seemed to catch the light of the chandeliers and glow golden when it hit them just right - golden, like the warm light of dawn. 

He watched, transfixed, as the feathers swung softly with each step she took and ruffled gently in a nonexistent breeze, as if the plumage was her own. He took in the way they had been carefully arranged, the longer ones down at the bottom and towards the sides, brushing down her slender arms, and the shorter ones clustered together between her shoulder blades and around her shoulders and it almost looked as if she were a Peregryn too. The image was simply too much to bear and he felt his heart shatter and tears well up in his eyes. He clenched his jaw, and balled his fists, determined not to break.  
Amarantha had finally reached her throne and she sat down in one perfectly choreographed move, spreading her arms wide before placing them gently on the armrests in order to display the cape to its full effect. “And all this time I thought the Dawn Court’s Peregryn’s were good for nothing…” she lilted, not looking at him. “It turns out they make an awfully pretty dress.”

He took a step forward, lurched by his grieving heart, ready to kill her with his bare hands for all the death and destruction she’d brought upon all of Prythian but he found himself unable to move, his feet rooted to the ground. 

He heard a smooth, cold voice in his head, telling him not to do something rash, reminding him that the rest of his people still needed him, that he still had to help get all of them out from Under the Mountain. Reminding him that there was still hope. For a brief second, the voice pulled him out of his trance and he thought the low murmur sounded awfully familiar. His gaze flicked briefly to a pair of violet eyes but they were trained on Amarantha, just like everyone else’s in the room. 

“I was almost expecting them to caw or shriek as we ripped out their lovely feathers. Alas, their screams were awfully human.” She laughed and regarded him with a look of pure delight, as he stood rooted to the spot and tears splashed on the impeccable marble at his feet.

The squelch of his shoes against a pile of blood-soaked feathers brought him violently back to the present and the dark corridor. He took in the faces of all the fallen Peregryns around him. Their mouths were still open in silent screams, their cheeks still tear stained like his, and their eyes staring blankly ahead. But their wings were by far the most abhorrent sight. The bones and muscle underneath the thin skin were visible in the places where the wings had snapped - probably from how hard the Peregryns had fought and thrashed - and where the alabaster feathers once were, there was nothing but pink bloodied flesh and patchy tufts of fluff. The formerly graceful curving lines of the wings now looked angular and bony and wrong. He could hear his heartbeat pounding, almost echoing off the cold walls of the corridor, like a startled dove trying to escape.

Thesan trudged further ahead, his eyes scanning each of the broken bodies. No, that one was too skinny. No, the hair was too light. No, the skin too smooth, not marred with battle scars. No, not him. Not him. Not him. Where was Jian?

As he neared the end of the corridor he felt his breath whoosh out of him as he saw the familiar form of the Captain of the Guard, slumped against the stone wall, his wrists bound in shackles and pinned to the walls above his head. He must have made a noise - a sob or a cry, he didn’t know - because the male’s head shot up and his onyx eyes found his. 

“Thesan!” he shouted, his voice breaking on the second syllable. “My High Lord,” he corrected. “You’re alive!”

Thesan hurried his steps as much as he could, without stepping on the dead, his eyes scanning the captain’s body. He noticed a vicious cut across his cheekbone and he looked bloodied and bruised but otherwise okay. He was almost certain most of the blood smeared on his clothes and skin wasn’t his, as his cheeks were flushed and he didn’t have the ghostly pallor of someone who had been bleeding to death. He looked exhausted though and Thesan thought he must have been shackled upright for more than half a day. His wings were folded to his back and he couldn’t assess how badly they had been damaged but his heart lurched when he saw streaks of red. 

“I’m okay. She didn’t touch me,” he said automatically. “How are you still alive?” He reached Jian and placed his hands on the front of the captain’s tunic awkwardly, not knowing what to do with them. He was so close to the captain’s face that he could see the spattering of freckles on his nose, and the individual hairs of his charcoal eyelashes. “The chains,” he said, his voice thicker than he intended. “What do I do?”

“My sword should be somewhere to your right,” Jian replied and Thesan didn’t know if he had imagined it but his voice sounded strained too. He stepped away and found the silver hilt of a sword right where the captain had said it would be. He reached under someone’s calf - his movements mechanical, not letting his mind wonder who it was he was touching - to grab the sword and pull it away from under the dead body.

“They wanted me to watch,” Jian continued and Thesan turned to face him when he heard the sorrow in his voice but Jian’s stare was focused on one of the lifeless bodies at his feet. He swallowed thickly. “That’s why I’m still alive. They wanted me to watch as they plucked the feathers from their wings one by one.”

“Are yours…” Thesan started but he found himself unable to finish the question. His eyes were focused on Jian as he carefully stepped towards him, his sword balanced in his hand.

“They’re fine,” he told him and raised his eyes to meet the High Lord’s once again. “I’m fine, Thesan.”

He just nodded as he stepped in front of the captain once again and brought his sword down in one swift stroke to sever the chains keeping his wrists bound. The male crumpled to the ground, his legs not being able to support his weight without the aid of the chains to keep him upright and Thesan let the sword clatter to the ground and rushed forward. He put his hand on Jian’s shoulders, propping him up against the wall as he straightened his legs out in front of him. The shackles were still secured around his wrists, the tender skin underneath it rubbed raw, but at least he could move his arms freely. 

Incredibly slowly, Thesan raised his hand, his eyes not straying from the Captain’s and Jian tracked Thesan’s every motion, not even daring to breathe, as the High Lord gently placed his palm against his cheek. He felt warmth radiate in gentle waves and slowly the dull throb from where one of Amarantha’s guards had cut his cheek open faded. His eyes widened as he realised Thesan must be using his healing magic and he reached forward and grabbed the High Lord’s wrist. 

“Don’t. Save your powers, you are already weakened here,” he told him and he was ready to chastise the High Lord for worrying over a simple cut when he noticed the tears shining in his eyes. 

“I was powerless to stop this.” Thesan’s voice was wobbly and Jian was suddenly reminded how young the High Lord actually was. Thesan had not yet been hardened by years of battles and carnage like he had, having been just a child during the War and he had felt like it had been his failure for not protecting the Dawn Court against Amarantha, and he had mentioned numerous times how his father had always been a better High Lord than him. “I was powerless to stop my court from being taken Under the Mountain, from being tortured and murdered, but I am not yet powerless to help you, Jian. So let me heal you because I cannot bear to see you hurt.” 

Jian merely nodded and wondered if Thesan saw how utterly helpless he was against his High Lord’s every wish. He heard Thesan murmur a quick thank you before he pressed his hands to his ribs, making him draw in a sharp breath. He had no idea how the High Lord knew exactly where he had been injured but as the slow pulsating warmth flooded through his body from the spot where Thesan touched him, he abandoned the thought and tilted his head back against the cool wall, closing his eyes with a sigh. Thesan worked in silence, taking a lot longer than he usually would have to heal the minor injuries, his powers a sliver of what they had been prior to Amarantha’s reign. Suddenly, Jian felt a startling touch against his wing and his eyes snapped open in shock. 

“Sorry,” Thesan said, a faint blush against his cheeks. “I know they’re sensitive, I was trying to be gentle,” he mumbled. 

Despite the grim circumstances, Jian struggled to hide a smile as he flared his wings wide for Thesan to inspect. The left one was sagging pathetically towards the ground from where the wrist had been dislocated. Thesan shuffled forward, his face now mere inches from Jian’s and Jian could see the flecks of gold in Thesan’s brown eyes as he scrutinised his injury. He was suddenly acutely aware of the way Thesan’s knee was pressing against the outside of his thigh and the way his breath felt hot against his feathers. The Peregryn thought that if Thesan turned his head, their lips would almost touch and his hand twitched with the urge to grab the High Lord’s chin and turn his head himself but he used every ounce of self control and discipline he had to urge his eyes to close once more as the High Lord groped around the joint of his wing to figure out where to best focus his powers. 

“When they came after us,” Jian started in a gruff voice. “When they brought us all here and told us what they were planning to do, I thought that was it. I thought she had finally tired of us all and after she had her guards pluck our feathers to stuff her pillows, she would feed us to her beasts and lastly she would kill you too. I thought I had failed to do the one thing I had dedicated my entire life to. Protecting you.” 

He opened his eyes and saw that Thesan was staring intently straight ahead, his hand still on his wing even though the warmth of his healing had long ago stopped, his wing now healed. Jian folded his wings in a cocoon around him and the High Lord, to test the mobility of his injured appendage before tucking them against his back and the movement seemed to startle Thesan. He jumped, moving away but still stared at the space that had been previously occupied by the captain’s wing. 

“A dress.”

Jian started. “What?”

“She used the feathers to make a dress,” Thesan said raising his head and Jian saw the tears flowing freely down his cheeks. “She marched in the throne room wearing a dress made out of my people’s feathers. My brave and loyal Peregryns died so she could make herself a dress.”

The statement shocked the captain to the bone and for a few heartbeats nothing but eerie silence surrounded them. He wanted nothing more than to take Thesan’s pain away, to save him from the agony of grieving his killed subjects and to kill whoever caused his High Lord pain. For he felt Thesan’s pain as if it were his own. He had his own reasons to grieve his fallen brothers, but alongside his own grief, he also felt the agony of the High Lord who had failed his people and let them be dragged Under the Mountain to meet a fate worse than death. But this had all been a display of how defenseless they all were against Amarantha’s wrath and he knew that his promises would hold no weight. Sometimes, though, even empty promises were better than nothing. 

“I will kill her.” Thesan’s eyes snapped up and locked with Jian’s which were burning with intensity. The captain reached forward and ran his thumb over the High Lord’s cheeks catching his tears. His skin felt soft and smooth under his calloused fingers and he couldn’t help but wonder if his mouth would feel just as soft against his. But he didn’t dare find out. “I will kill her,” he promised his High Lord again. “We are going to find a way to get out from under this Cauldron damned mountain, we will return the rest of the Dawn Court home again and I am going to drive my sword through her heart and make her pay for all the pain she has caused us. We will go home again, Thesan.”

And as he felt a sharp tug against his ribs - a tug he knew he couldn’t acknowledge, not now and not at all while they were stuck under this mountain where she would see it as nothing but another weakness to exploit and another way to hurt him - Thesan allowed himself for the first time to have hope that he would see the Dawn court again. Hope that he could find happiness again. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a random little idea. Hope you enjoyed!  
> Comments and reviews are always appreciated! :)


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